One of the big headlines this week has been the release of Google’s new messaging app, Allo. This is an app which was announced back at Google’s I/O event along with a sort of counterpart app, Duo. While Duo is designed to bring people together via video, Allo is designed to bring people together through messaging. Although, while Duo took its time arriving on the scene, Allo took even longer. A wait which has meant that the anticipation and excitement surrounding the new messaging app had reached fever pitch by the time it arrived.
As is commonly the case with anything which sees such heightened levels of excitement prior to the event, once Allo did finally become available, it quickly became met with mixed reviews and feelings. While the app comes with most of the features that were announced at Google I/O, to some, the app just doesn’t offer enough. What it does offer is limited and in some cases, even dated. Which has led to the app being somewhat heavily criticized by some.
Which in turn has now led to Justin Uberti, who is the technical lead for Duo and the co-lead for Allo taking to Twitter to address some of the concerns. Over the course of a couple of tweets, Uberti notes that a list is being made of all the suggestions that users of the app are offering as improvements. While also making a point to address those who feel let-down buy the app by reminding those users that this is an app which is in its debut stages. Uberti thanked those who “understood that Allo v1 is just that: a 1.0 product” and made it clear that the app will be updated in due course with improvements coming “every few weeks”.
Of course, whether that does satisfy those who are put off by the app’s initial level of functionality and style, remains to be seen. Google apps are highly popular apps and it does stand to reason that expectations with a new Google app will be vast. Although, by the same token Google apps are ones which do see some of the most frequent updating and new features coming through, so it does stand to reason that Allo will only get better as time goes on.